Having said goodbye to two members of staff last week we have welcomed some staff on a more permanent basis or into different posts, so here goes:
Ms Maguire (who currently works on Reception) will be joining the Office Staff permanently as Business Support Administrator and will be taking on the role of my PA.
Mr Woolley (currently Teacher of RMPS) has been appointed to the acting role of Head of Social Subjects.
Mrs M Stuart is continuing as Teacher of Art as is Ms S Moore as Teacher of Technologies.
Mr T Mazazda will be joining us as Temporary Teacher of Mathematics for the session and Ms D Moffat will be our new Pupil Support Worker.  They will take up post as soon as the relevant checks have been completed.
I am delighted for them and wish them all the best for the rest of the session.

Mr Flood and I had the pleasure of attending the meeting to launch “The Haddington Vision” on Monday.  It was great to see so many members of the community there.  I certainly got some good ideas and met some very interesting people.  A number of our pupils were involved in hosting the event and had also put ideas forward for the “Vision”.  I was so very proud of them as they showed what confident young people they are and that they were willing to turn their hands to anything (even the artistic arrangement of wine glasses – you had to be there, really!).

The Parent School Partnership met on Wednesday.  We had an interesting presentation from Mr Greenaway giving us an update on E-Portfolios and the S3 Profile.  The PSP website continues to be “down”, so feel free to use the school as a conduit for any issues that you would like to raise. 

It amazes me to think that I have been in post as Head Teacher for nearly two months now – I never knew that time could pass so quickly.  Interestingly the demands on my time have changed quite significantly from when I was a depute, and I seem to be rushing from one meeting to the next and trying to visit as many classrooms as I can. I am aware that parents have been contacting me via telephone, letter and email and I apologise if my responses have been tardy.  If you are ‘phoning in to speak to me, it would be really helpful if you could give the Office Staff some idea of what it is you need to speak to me about.  This helps me in two ways: firstly to prioritise my workload and secondly it might be more appropriate for someone else to investigate your query or concern e.g. the House Head or Guidance Teacher.  So, please do not be offended if you the person who answers your call seems to be asking a lot of questions or suggests that you speak to someone else - they are trying to meet your needs.

Next week sees us in the run-up to the October Holiday.  We finish at 12.05 on Friday 12th October and pupils return on the 23rd October.